IACLE Announces 2018 Award Winners

April 2018

IACLE announces worldwide winners of annual awards

Contact lens educators from Canada, India, the Netherlands, Colombia, Lebanon and Argentina are to receive prestigious awards from IACLE. And this year there are more awards than ever before.

IACLE has today announced the full line-up of winners of the 2018 IACLE Contact Lens Educator of the Year Awards to recognize and reward achievement in contact lens education, and the 2018 IACLE Travel Awards for members to attend major international meetings.

Thanks to generous sponsorship from CooperVision, four IACLE Contact Lens Educator of the Year Awards will be presented, to IACLE members in each of IACLE’s three global regions. This year, for the first time, two educators in the Europe / Africa – Middle East region will jointly receive an award. And three IACLE Travel Awards – funded by all IACLE’s industry sponsors – will be presented, rather than just one in previous years.

Recipients of the 2018 IACLE Awards each receive a bursary of up to US$3,000 towards the cost of attending a major international meeting during 2018 and a certificate to mark the award, to be presented at the conference attended.

The 2018 IACLE Contact Lens Educators of the Year will receive their awards at the American Academy of Optometry’s Academy 2018 meeting in San Antonio, Texas, USA in November.

And the winners are:

	IACLE Americas Contact Lens Educator of the Year Professor Lyndon Jones   University of Waterloo, Canada
	IACLE Asia Pacific Contact Lens Educator of the Year Associate Professor Runa Mazumder Vidyasagar College of Optometry & Vision Science, Kolkata, India
	IACLE Europe / Africa – Middle East Contact Lens Educators of the Year Wim Borst (left) Deltion College, Zwollen, the Netherlands Henri Eek (right) Deltion College and Hogeschool Utrecht, the Netherlands
Click here to read more about this year’s IACLE Contact Lens Educator of the Year Awards winners
The 2018 IACLE Travel Awards recipients and the meetings they will attend are:
	Professor Martha Lucila Márquez García Santo Tomás University, Bucaramanga, Colombia Academy 2018 in San Antonio, Texas, USA November 2018
	Ahmed Sherry Modern University for Business and Science, Beirut, Lebanon Association of Optometric Contact Lens Educators’ Annual Workshop, San Antonio, Texas, USA (Thanks to additional support from AOCLE). May/June 2018
	Professor Sabrina Lara Universidad Nacional Villa Maria in Córdoba, Argentina FEDOPTO Congress in Barranquilla, Colombia August 2018

Click here to read more about this year’s IACLE Travel Awards winners

On the announcement of his award, Professor Lyndon Jones said: ‘Founded almost 40 years ago, IACLE continues to fulfil its mandate of providing cutting edge, contemporary education on contact lenses to contact lens educators around the globe. The vast majority of contact lens clinicians globally have been trained in some way by an IACLE-affiliated educator and without IACLE, and the resources it provides to educators, there is no doubt in my mind that contact lens practice would be behind where it is today. I am absolutely delighted to be given this award and I thank IACLE for its continued dedication to training the contact lens clinicians of tomorrow.’

IACLE President Dr Shehzad Naroo commented: ‘This year we have more IACLE Awards winners travelling to more meetings than ever before. A huge congratulations to our winners and thank you to our sponsors and collaborators who make this happen. IACLE members should get ready to nominate themselves or be nominated next year.’

‘We wholeheartedly congratulate the 2018 Educators of the Year for the well-deserved recognition of their commitment to the advancement of contact lens professionals around the world,’ said Dr Gary Orsborn, Vice President of Global Professional & Clinical Affairs for CooperVision. ‘We are thrilled to continue our long-standing partnership with IACLE on this program, for the honorees and their work continue to be an inspiration to all of us at CooperVision.’

Click here for full details of the IACLE Contact Lens Educator of the Year Awards and here to find out more about the IACLE Travel Awards, including comments from all this year’s winners.

International Association of Contact Lens Educators

E:iacle@iacle.org
W: www.iacle.org

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